Caldwell Village Neighborhood Watch captain Tiffany Precissi used social media, email and old-fashioned canvassing to raise money and to recruit.

"There were trees that had been in the park that had been removed for various reasons," Precissi said. "They never got replanted. So we took the initiative. We raised the money through donations and we did it. We made it happen."

They did it on Love Stockton Day, dedicated to civic volunteerism. A group of Pacific students joined, not only in the planting, but in painting benches, tables and bathrooms.

"I really enjoyed it," said Jen Cavagnaro, a graduate student. "I felt like I was giving back. I can come back and look at these trees I planted and feel like I'm part of something big."

At the symposium, Karrie Reid, a horticulture advisor with the UC Cooperative Extension, said how to battle the black plague of Stockton trees, mistletoe.

"The best thing they can do - the easiest thing - is to cut it out as soon as you see it," Reid advised. "Cut it off flush with the branch. Don't leave anything sticking above the bark."

Hack the mistletoe a couple years running because its root-like "hyphae" (pronounced hyphy, like the Oakland hip-hop sub-genre) gets pretty established under the bark.

But don't saw off the branch unless the limb is dead, Reid cautioned: "People just willy-nilly cutting off branches and leaving big stubs, that's not a good thing,"

» The city also got a grant to inventory roughly half its urban forest.

"The city has never had a really good inventory of all its trees," said Colt Esenwein, acting deputy public works director of operations and maintenance.

Now, crews with Davey Resource Group, a national urban forest consultancy, are tramping about counting trees, tabulating their genus and species, their health, even GPS-locating them.

"It's difficult for us to plan for the future of our urban forest if we don't have a good idea what we have and what condition it's in," Esenwein said, adding the ultimate goal is "a good computer-based management system."

» Finally - at long last - the El Dorado Street widening project has started up again.

Public outcry halted it five years ago after it commenced with the shaving of 104 mature trees. The city had no plans to replace them.

The re-revised project will add one lane to El Dorado; but also widen sidewalks; and line the street with 144 trees: 54 maidenhair, 8 crape myrtle, 82 London planes.

The University Neighborhood Renaissance Committee and Stockton Tree Foundation want you on their quarterly mailing list. It's free. Subscribe at unrc.org.

"We really are interested in people getting their information to us so we can stay in touch with them, alert them of our projects," Gamboni said.

"We also want them to suggest a tree-planting project in their neighborhood so we can get it permitted, funded and planted."